Seamless Post Workflow Enables Last-Minute HD Screenings on The Nanny Diaries
What happens when a struggling New York City college student is hired as a nanny by a wealthy family and enters the elite world of Manhattan's upper East Side? The Nanny Diaries, a film adaptation of the bestselling book by former, real-life nannies Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, delivers the inside story with comedic wit. The movie stars Scarlett Johansson as the nanny and Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney as "the Xs," the dysfunctional parents of a neglected six-year-old boy left to the nanny's care for three frantic months. Shot entirely in New York City, the filmmakers used a full range of Avid systems to create the comedy-drama.
Director and editor Robert Pulcini and additional editor Shelly Westerman usedtwo Windows-based Media Composer Adrenaline systems linked through the Avid Unity MediaNetwork shared-storage solution with 2.5 terabytes of storage for simultaneous access to media and cuts in progress. A Macintosh-based Avid Xpress Pro system, also connected to the Avid Unity MediaNetwork, was used as an assistant station to handle tasks such as logging and syncing. Orbit (a division of PostWorks, New York), which provides Avid editing and finishing systems support and service, provided the editors with Avid rental equipment and helped them develop a flexible workflow that was instrumental in meeting different project needs as they arose. For example, late in the project the focus shifted unexpectedly from preparing several internal screenings to creating multiple preview screenings for test audiences in conventional theater settings. The editors not only needed to create the highest quality screening versions possible, they also needed to create those masters quickly in order to have enough time to incorporate feedback from the screening and still stay on schedule for the film's release date.
Orbit worked closely with Westerman to develop an efficient Avid offline-to-online workflow to handle the additional preview requests and provide HD screenings under tight timelines. Westerman turned over each offline cut in progress from the Media Composer Adrenaline system to the staff at Orbit, and they, in turn, used their own Avid DS Nitris system to create a master tape for each screening, relying on the system's advanced HD conform capabilities to seamlessly recreate the edits and effects from the offline cut. The first preview was completed in one week's time, including color correction, in Orbit's midtown facility. Subsequent preview masters were completed in as little as one or two days, since all color corrections and effects would update and link to the revised cuts being delivered from Westerman from her Media Composer Adrenaline system.
"Orbit would check the cuts based on a QuickTime reference and a copy of the sequence that I provided them, including any visual effects files that had been updated, and make the changes," explains Westerman. "After they did that, we did a temp sound mix at an offsite soundstage [using Digidesign Pro Tools systems] and delivered our sound elements to Orbit, and they'd marry that to the HD picture."
"Nothing beats the power of Avid [systems]!"
- Shelly Westerman, Additional Editor, The Nanny Diaries
United They Stand
This was Westerman's first time editing an entire film in a Windows-based environment. "We wanted the advanced capabilities of the [Media Composer] Adrenaline systems," she states. "It was a dream being on the [Media Composer] Adrenaline [system] in terms of working with the sound and music departments.
I actually felt it was exponentially faster. Usually, when we do a turnover to the sound and music departments, we have to make QuickTimes of each reel, which would take forever on other systems. But, on the Adrenaline [system], a 20-minute reel took 15 to 20 minutes to run as a QuickTime, which is very similar to real time. The sound people were working on Pro Tools [systems], so they loved the QuickTimes, and our turnover to them was very fast and simple [using OMF files]. Because we maintained the [different types of] media in separate workspaces, we were able to do turnovers to the various departments very quickly and create all the elements in a very efficient fashion."
Being on the Avid Unity MediaNetwork system also helped the editors manage the various workspaces they created. "It was a big plus to share all our media through [Avid] Unity," says Westerman. "We could be in the same project with the editors, assistants, and directors, and it made media management much easier."
The editors on The Nanny Diaries were also able to create visually sophisticated temp effects in the Media Composer Adrenaline system and then pass them on to the effects house, New York-based Rhino FX. The staff at Rhino created near-final effects for the screenings and final effects for the master print, delivering final shots back to the editors as they became available.
The Media Composer Adrenaline system, with its top-quality compositing tools, was instrumental in helping Westerman incorporate more than 100 visual effects shots, most of which involved greenscreen comps that required several layers of video with SpectraMatte keying and picture-in-picture effects. "Our predominant effect was a diorama," says Westerman. "For example, we had a live-action sequence that turned into a museum diorama, like a frozen, painted piece that sometimes turned back into live action. This involved a Mo-Sys [motion control] camera with many layers of live-action, background, and greenscreen elements, which were all done by Rhino and then delivered to us in a high-res format."
The Media Composer Adrenaline system's processing power was essential for efficiently handling the high-res effects provided by Rhino for the test screenings, enabling editors to quickly hand over the cut to Orbit for a fast, seamless HD conform on the Avid DS Nitris system. Westerman explains the process: "Usually we get low-res comps from an effects house with burn-ins and frame numbers on the shots, but because of our screening schedule and because we hadn't planned to do as many temps as we'd done, we decided to take advantage of the Adrenaline [system].
So, the files that Rhino provided us with were uncompressed QuickTimes, which I delivered to Orbit for the HD previews. At the same time, I imported those files into the Adrenaline and let the system do the conversion for the 14:1 low-res, so that Rhino just delivered once in a high-res format. I received the effects clean, without burn-ins or frame numbers, so when I cut in effects, I had to line them up myself and edit for each pass that I'd receive. It was a bit more work, but given what we were trying to achieve in a short schedule with the number of previews that weren't originally anticipated by the visual effects house, this was a good workaround solution - and the key to it was Avid Adrenaline."
"It was a dream being on the [Media Composer] Adrenaline [system] in terms of working with the sound and music departments. I actually felt it was exponentially faster."
- Shelly Westerman, Additional Editor, The Nanny Diaries
Collaboration and Appreciation
Overall, Westerman appreciated the close collaboration that was possible with Orbit, Rhino, Avid, and the directors.
"It's what a production like this should be: a collaborative effort all around - creatively and technically - where you work together every step of the way," she says.
"It's important to have this kind of an interactive relationship, especially through these changing technological times, where almost every show will be different in terms of specs, how the technology may have changed, and how we need to find new ways of doing things."
Westerman, who has been using Avid systems for almost a decade, has edited only one project that didn't use Avid's technology. "When I came back to Avid [systems] for The Nanny Diaries, I just thought, 'Nothing beats the power of Avid [systems]!'"
*CREDIT: © 2006 The Weinstein Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved.